Interview: David Cameron

'Of course it's a daunting prospect'

If the polls are right, then on Wednesday David Cameron will walk into the Commons chamber to thunderous cheers from the Tory benches, and ironic ones from Labour, and face Tony Blair at prime minister's questions. As he criss-crosses the country by helicopter and plane, in the final days of the leadership campaign, that moment is increasingly on his mind. He promises a dramatic change in style and a different kind of politics, in which the Tories ally themselves with others - including, if necessary, Tony Blair himself.

"There are clear areas where the government is suggesting something that the Conservatives have long been calling for, where it would be totally ludicrous for us to oppose it," he says. He cites education and health, two tough issues for Blair. "The alternative of trooping through the division lobbies with Frank Dobson and the other dinosaurs would just make us look ridiculous."

This is not, he adds, a blank cheque for the prime minister - there were some bad ideas on education, such as putting a 75-page schools admission code into statute. But when asked if he could see the Tories, with Blair, all voting together on the reform agenda against the Labour left, Cameron unhesitatingly replies: "If it accords with our principles and values, then yes."

This is of course a double-edged weapon, since while it might allow Blairite ministers to get through legislation that would otherwise be blocked by rebels, it would also be uncomfortable and undermining for the prime minister to have to rely on the Tories. On the other side, many Conservatives find the notion of sustaining Blair, rather than trying to pull him down, utterly baffling.

I ask Cameron about Francis Maude's idea that Tory modernisers could find themselves allied with Labour modernisers such as Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn. "In parliament we should vote according to our principles on the issues - it may turn out that you find yourself in the division lobby with some of the people you have mentioned."

Such alliances have been mooted before, but there are signs that this time the Cameronian Tories mean it. Oliver Letwin is already working with the Liberal Democrats' Norman Baker on environmental policy. Cameron says: "I don't think that being a tribal Conservative means that you can't where necessary work with other parties."

Climate change is just one issue but Cameron says he wants to see more such initiatives. Pension reform is an obvious example. "There's a growing consensus - the pensions industry, the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative party, probably Tony Blair - who want to see a stronger basic state pension at the heart of the system." One way to get that would be to restore the earnings link and he would be "quite prepared" to look at raising the retirement age.

On cue, George Osborne, his closest friend in politics and currently shadow chancellor, is reaching out to the Lib Dems' Vince Cable in support of Lord Turner's pension reform programme. Support for Lord Turner would certainly create an even bigger alliance against the chancellor, Gordon Brown. By strengthening Tony Blair it cleverly divides Labour, wedging further open the divisions in the government.

And it is Brown, not Blair, who Cameron expects to have to fight in the next election. It is Brown, not Blair, who is at the sharp end of Cameron's rhetoric: "I think Blair has been a formidable politician and he's put Labour firmly in the centre ground of British politics and baffled the opposition. But I think he is looking increasingly tired and out of steam, in pursuit of the legacy for its own sake." By contrast it was "Gordon Brown who is opposing reform of the public services, who is complicating the tax and benefits system, who is over-regulating business ... so I think it is much easier to oppose him, as someone who is clearly holding Britain back from being all that she could be."

Rarely has a political gameplan been so honestly, even nakedly, laid out.

All of this gives Cameron the confidence to claim that the next election is "wide open". In the spring, Labour had lost in terms of its share of the vote going down, but the Tories had failed in that "we didn't do enough to win people's trust". Hence his emphasis on modernising the party. Though he won't set a figure on how many women candidates he wants, and remains opposed to all-women shortlists, Cameron does say that "the concept of an A list is something I am perfectly prepared to entertain, where you have some of the best and brightest candidates, an equal number of men and women, and candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds as well". This is not quite the same thing, but at least he spontaneously points out of the Tories that "in 1932 we had 13 women MPs, and now we've got 17; that is not great progress".

As he squares up to Blair, Cameron promises a different approach. He knows that he faces a mammoth task at prime minister's questions: "Tony Blair has now been doing this for 11 years, so all the time I've spent writing questions for other people isn't really a substitute for 11 years of practice." But it has become a knockabout, "damaging for parliament and for politics in general". There should be "less of the Punch and Judy". Though he says question time is good for government, "it would be much better to have less point-scoring, finger-pointing, name-calling and try to make it a reasonable debate".

Cameron spends a lot of time talking about what he calls "a national school leaver programme", not national service as such, but "saying to young people as they leave school, or between school and university, that there should be a three to four-month programme run by voluntary bodies, businesses, possibly armed services as well, of something that has public service at its heart, that people do together".

Although it sounds woolly, Cameron has a dozen organisations discussing the scheme. "I would like us to look at it being compulsory. I understand [there are] very real drawbacks with this." Among the organisations he is talking to are the NUT, the Prince of Wales's trust and Community Service Volunteers. The idea, which echoes Prince Charles and Gordon Brown, is to bring the country closer together. It comes back to his idea of conservatism, "the idea that we are all in it together, that we are one country, one nation ... We need to make sure that the full range of conservative voice is heard, rather than just one half of the orchestra."

During our interview he was in full scurry, failing to shake off a cold picked up from his children, and insisting that when the ballot boxes are opened he has no real idea of what will come out. But he talks entirely on the basis that he is about to lead the Tories. "Of course it's a daunting prospect." He doesn't sound all that daunted.